Leadership in Focus: Marcel Lauzière
By Elisa Birnbaum
November 3, 2008
This month in our Leadership in Focus series, we feature Marcel Lauzière. Current president of the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD), a position he’s held for eight years, Marcel was recently appointed president and CEO of Imagine Canada. With more than 20 years of diverse and vast experience in the nonprofit sector, Marcel is certainly well-equipped for his new position, which takes effect November 20, 2008. CharityVillage joins the rest of the community in wishing him all the best in his new role.
CharityVillage: How has the nonprofit sector evolved over the years and what are the main challenges it faces today?
Marcel Lauzière: Certainly what hasn’t changed in the sector is a very strong sense of mission that charitable and nonproift organizations have. In everything they do, their sense of and their desire for community development and their desire to enhance the lives of Canadians - that, I think, is as strong, if not stronger than it has ever been in the past. So that is very positive.
In terms of changes, I think over the last decade or even 15 years, we certainly have seen more of a shift to nonprofit and charitable organizations doing service delivery for a variety of reasons. One key reason is we’ve seen a number of governments move out from particular areas of service and those areas are picked up by the voluntary sector. I think that’s a big change. We’ve also seen a professionalization of the sector, and there’s some good things about that and maybe some less good things.
I think the sector now is more connected than it was before because, in large part, technology allows us to [connect] a lot more effectively than in the past. Though there’s still a lot of work to do on that front, organizations in different parts of the country can be better connected. Organizations can also be better connected to their members and their donors. So the advances and new technologies on that front have been absolutely enormous and that has changed things. I think the sector has also changed in terms of how it views accountability, transparency, governance issues. And that’s not strictly limited to the voluntary sector; we’ve seen that within government and industry too. Organizations are doing a better job on that front, no matter what sector they come from.
In terms of key challenges that we’re going to be seeing in the coming years, or even right now, the tightening of the labour market will be quite an important challenge for our sector. With our aging society, with our economy changing, there’s going to be huge competition from the public and private sectors for the best and brightest, who we are also constantly looking for. I think that’s going to be a real challenge for the sector because we don’t have the same capacity to pay or provide benefits or stability. Certainly some of the larger [organizations] do, but I was thinking of the smaller nonprofits.
And I think the nonprofit sector, like the public sector, is probably still working too much in silos. The issues that we’re facing are increasingly complex and it’s very difficult for one organization to have a real impact if it’s not working with a variety of other partners and collaborating with a number of other organizations from the sector. I think we can improve on that front.
CV: Do you think being a leader in the nonprofit sector differs from leading other sectors?
ML: I think the principles are the same. What is different is the conditions under which we attempt to provide leadership within the voluntary and nonprofit sector. Some of the conditions - the funding, the lack of long-term funding, etc. - create some real issues around leadership. Part of leadership is attracting and retaining people within your organization, and funding issues are always a big challenge. Within the voluntary sector we’re very consultative...we work with boards, we work with members, communities, and in that sense are much more consultative than the government or the private sector would be. That creates some very different conditions for leadership.
The fact that we work with volunteers, whether they be volunteer boards or volunteers that help us do our work throughout the country, that’s also a condition that is really unknown in the private or public sector. But in terms of key principles - they are very much the same. Leadership is about ensuring that you’re providing and communicating a clear vision and destination to the people you’re working with, to your organization, to your members, to your volunteers.
“Leadership can’t be just at the top of the organization; it has to be shared at various levels.” |
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Leaders need to be passionate because it's through passion that we actually get people enthusiastic...[wanting] to go in that same direction. That’s the case in every sector. We have to distinguish between leadership and management. You need both for an organization to work effectively. But on the leadership front, it’s very much about communicating a very clear vision and destination, doing it in a passionate way so people get excited about issues. It’s also recognizing that leadership can’t be just at the top of the organization; leadership has to be shared at various levels of the organization. A good leader will normally try to encourage people within the whole organization to play leadership roles at different levels.
CV: In your opinion, are organizations doing enough to foster future/young leaders? If not, what can they do better?
ML: I think we talk a lot about it; we recognize that we need to do it. I’m not sure we do it that well. Of course I’m generalizing; there are some organizations that are doing it extraordinary well, who’ve identified it as a huge priority for the future of their organization, and often its easier to do that in larger organizations. For smaller, medium-sized organizations, it’s difficult because people are stretched, looking at the bottom line constantly, looking at delivering services, carrying out their mission. Looking at succession planning is something that we, unfortunately, don’t spend enough time doing.
In terms of young future leaders, I think it’s going to be extraordinarily important because of what I was saying earlier, the tightening of the labour market and the capacity of the charitable and nonprofit sector to attract and retain. Part of that will be ensuring we have the young leadership to continue the work, and not just continue the work in the way it is being done now. Because one idea about having young leaders is to rethink the way we do our work, and possibly do it differently, possibly even more effectively. So I think it’s finding the balance. Those of us in the sector have, I hope, some wisdom that we can provide, but at the same time, the future leaders, the younger generation, will come to the table with different views of the world, different ways of doing things.
I think that’s all for the good. But I think it’s difficult to do. Increasingly, organizations are thinking about that because leadership in the sector is aging. It’s a huge priority. I would really like to see us identify some best practices in this area, identify organizations that have actually spent a lot of time thinking about this and have developed some strategies around future leadership and building young leaders, and actually share those best practices so that we encourage and learn from the experience of others.
CV: You have broad experience in social development. With that in mind, how do Canada and our nonprofit sector fare in their ability to care for communities? Are our social policies on par with those of other countries?
ML: Well that’s a huge question. Canada has one of the largest and one of the most effective charitable and nonprofit sectors in the world. I think we’re the envy of many countries and we should be extraordinarily proud of that. I think Canada would be a different place if we didn’t have the strong charitable and voluntary sector that we have. There’s no doubt about that. In terms of our social policy, I think there’s a lot of work to be done.
The danger when we go into these situations where the economy is not as strong as we want it to be, is that we forget or we put social policy and social issues on the backburner hoping we will be able to fix them once the economy starts roaring again. Well that’s not how things work. The social policy challenges that we are facing in the county are daunting and we need to be mindful of that as we move into difficult economic times.
CV: What specific leadership challenges have you faced in your various roles in the nonprofit/charitable sector?
ML: I’ve had many challenges for sure. Many years ago, I had the role of merging two longstanding national organizations and amalgamating them into one organization. That was a challenge, but I learned a lot from it. And it certainly opened my eyes to the fact, going back to what I said earlier, that we really do work in silos. We don’t sufficiently recognize our commonalities and the strength that we would have if we were actually working together more effectively. You see a lot of that happening when you’re merging organizations.
You realize that by working together more collaboratively, by bringing resources together, you’re being more effective and delivering on your mission more effectively. It’s about putting more emphasis on working together, developing real partnerships, and recognizing that, at the end of the day, the outcome will probably be enhanced if we work together in a more holistic fashion.
CV: What is your leadership style or philosophy?
ML: I’m a big believer in the importance of having a clear vision and a clear destination of where you want to go. I think that’s really the first step for any leader. The second one is around communication, making it clear to others and getting people enthusiastic about it. It’s very important. If people are going to want to come on board and want to work toward that particular destination, there has to be some enthusiasm. There has to be a sense that if we go this way things will actually be better in the end, the outcome will be stronger.
Another element is for any leader in any organization to encourage leadership at all levels of the organization.
CV: What practical advice on leadership would you offer others?
ML: Two mistakes to avoid are: to forget about the importance of communicating very clearly, and to think that leadership is only done at the top. Those are two very important mistakes.
CV: What leadership mentors have inspired you over the years?
ML: Two people come to mind. One from over 20 years ago, at the beginning of my career, was Christian Pouyez, the executive director of the Social Science Federation of Canada, where I was working. What he really taught me - not by telling me, but simply by doing it - was to be extraordinarily attuned to the people who were working with him. He was someone who was always there to listen to the issues you had, to help you struggle through things you needed to do in your particular position, challenges you were facing. Very much that open door policy, always recognizing that as a leader he needed to do that to encourage his staff, to be there for them. He made a big difference in the way I’ve tried to work in the following years. I'm not sure I was able to do as well as he did, but that certainly was something I learned from him.
More recently, there was Peter Hughes, deputy minister of the Ministry of Social Development, who I worked with in New Zealand. He is an extraordinary communicator. I think I understood some of it before, but he really brought home for me the importance of communicating the vision, not only to your staff but to your stakeholders, to other government departments, etc. I learned a lot from him in terms of how you communicate issues and how you bring people along with you.
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is also president of Elle Communications and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.
Next week: Baby boomers and the future of volunteerism
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